Many B.C. lakes still accessible to general public: Douglas Lake lawyer

KAMLOOPS — It’s been a long journey for the Nicola Valley Fish and Game Club. Director Rick McGowan started battling for public access to Minnie and Stoney Lakes near Merritt in the 1980s.

In December 2018, he and the club won the right to access the lakes. However, it was reversed earlier this year and now the club’s application to be heard by the Supreme Court of Appeal has been denied.

“Myself and the club are feeling overwhelmed because we really can’t believe what happened and how it happened,” noted McGowan. “But bottom line is the people of British Columbia just had a landmark decision for the future of recreation turned completely against them.”

The reversal earlier this year, and the subsequent rejection of the club’s appeal, means there is no public access to Minnie and Stoney Lakes. However, the Douglas Lake Cattle Company says Crown land around the lakes is accessible.

“There’s a three-foot wide creek that runs into Minnie Lake called Wasley Creek that is owned by the Crown,” said Evan Cooke, lawyer for the Douglas Lake Cattle Company. “It’s theoretically possible to walk down a creek from the road way to get to the centre of Minnie Lake, but it’s not a location where you can launch a boat, for example.”

However, it’s not going to stop McGowan and others from accessing the lakes from the Pennask Lake Road, which is public.

“It does go straight into the creek at Minnie Lake and you can put a boat in the creek and paddle out to the public part of the lake, but Douglas Lake is going to make it very uncomfortable and probably try to obscure the road,” noted McGowan.

From a broader perspective, McGowan fears this decision will not only affect the lakes near Merritt, but many others across B.C. and maybe even across Canada.

“They tried to make it very site-specific to Minnie and Stoney, but the reality is we never went into it with just Minnie [and Stoney] Lake in mind. We went into it with all public places, lakes, lands and streams, and what this has done is set it back. There’s going to be locks and privatizing of lakes and shorelines. It might take a while to snowball, but it’s going to get rolling for sure because the rich are going to take advantage of this,” said McGowan.

However, the Douglas Lake Cattle Company says the number of lakes surrounded by private property is limited and there are plenty of public lakes on which people can fish.

“Because 95 per cent of the land in British Columbia is owned by the province, or federal government, and there are 20,000 lakes in British Columbia, I think the application of this case is relatively limited,” said Cooke. “There are tens of thousands of lakes available and accessible to the general public, and perhaps a handful that are surrounded by private property, so I don’t see it being a huge impediment to recreating.”

The fish and game club owes legal costs to the Douglas Lake Cattle Company, but has little money after spending it all in the courts. McGowan says they’ll likely have to dissolve the Nicola Valley Fish and Game Club and create a new one.